Romney Redux?
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Governor Romney is growing more open to the idea of running for president in 2016, according to the latest Politico dispatch. It reports that the Republican “hasn’t moved from saying he has no plans to run.” But it reports that it has spoken with more than a dozen persons who say that the GOP’s 2012 nominee has, in recent conversations, “sounded at least open to the idea.” That may be wishful thinking from an inner circle whose members themselves want another glimpse of glory. But it may also be accurate.
The New York Sun hopes that Mr. Romney will go for it. We are not endorsing Mr. Romney herewith. He is said by Politico to be “less than upbeat” about the other potential candidates in the GOP field. We see it differently. The Republican bench looks deep to us, starting with Mr. Romney’s own 2012 running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan, and his fellow Wisconsinite, Governor Walker, to Governors Bush, Martinez, and Perry, as well as Senators Cruz, Rubio, and Paul. Each would be better than any Democrat.
It seems clear, though, that in the last election America sent the wrong man to the White House. Had Mr. Romney emerged as president, our economy would have been in better shape, our foreign policy would not be such a catastrophe, presidential aides would not be calling the only elected prime minister in the Middle East “chickens**t,” race relations at home would not have deteriorated so badly, and religion would not be so beset by our own government. So why shouldn’t Mr. Romney ready a second campaign?
There is no doubt that he made some blunders in 2012. His brainstorm about reverse immigration was one, as was his failure to explicate in a straightforward way his remarks about the 47% of Americans who pay no taxes and are dependent on the government. The 47% would, after all, be better off under a growing, Romney-type economy. His biggest blunder — by far —was his failure to stand on the monetary reform plank that was put up by GOP platform writers after the issue resonated in the primaries.
But why should anyone assume that Mr. Romney himself has failed to comprehend his own mistakes? Let that question be explored in a primary campaign. Let us see who else will stand right now on the issue of sound money and illuminate the way the folly of fiat money has consumed the hopes the voters once placed in Mr. Obama. There is no doubt in our mind that this is the issue President Reagan would have seized on at this juncture, as he once seized so shrewdly — and victoriously — on the fiscal fiasco.
Policy particulars aside, there is a similarity between Reagan and Mr. Romney that strikes us as important. It’s that sunny, optimistic disposition. The importance of optimism was the subject of a column that the editor of the Sun wrote for the New York Post back in August. And we don’t mind saying that we see an element of that in Mr. Romney, the cheerfulness, the broad decency, the can-doism, the reluctance to ad-hominem campaigning, the gubernatorial savvy.
What Reagan taught us is how fast our crisis can be turned around, if we have the right policies. This was the theme of one of the greatest speeches we ever heard, Robert Bartley’s l’envoi when he stepped down as editor of the Wall Street Journal. This is a theme Mr. Romney is in a good position to convey. We are at a stage of things where the disappointments of the Obama years are clear even to millions of Democrats. We need a big tent Republican now, and there’s no reason why Mr. Romney should feel locked out of the coming fray just because the better candidate wasn’t elected last time.